For more than 900 years, the Tower of London has occupied its place at the heart of English life. At various times a royal citadel, palace, menagerie, observatory, public records office, mint, arsenal and, even to this day, the home of the crown jewels of England, since 1100 it has famously served as a prison for notorious traitors, heretics, and even royalty. Out of the more than 8,000 unfortunate souls, many who were imprisoned in the Tower never left. Those who did, often did so without their head. For a small number, however, the supposedly impenetrable walls proved merely a minor nuisance. Author and historian Matt Lewis visits the Tower of London to tell the story of those fortunate few who succeeded in escaping one of history's most famous prisons.
This story has everything: war, politics, betrayal, scandal, murder and at its heart a cracking forensic science mystery. This is the story of Simon Fraser, the 11th Lord Lovat of the Highland, also known as the Fox. In the late 1660s, Simon Fraser was born in a house on the banks of a burn in th...
The Peterloo Massacre was a critical moment in the reform movement at the start of the 19th century. Thousands of people gathered at St Peter's Fields near Manchester to protest for an expansion of the franchise. The local magistrates summoned yeomanry to dispel what they saw as a riot, but as th...
High on the peak of the Cotswolds stands one of the most remarkable buildings in Britain. Built as a folly in the final days of the 18th century, Broadway Tower sprung up during the height of the French Revolutionary Wars under the distracted watch of the architect James Wyatt. In the following y...
